312 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. VIII. Oct. 15. '50. 



Mir. David Laing in his Early Metrical Tales, 

 octavo, 1826, — under the title of Ane Godlie 

 Dreame compylit in Scottish Meter be M. M. Gen- 

 telvvoman in Culross at the requeistof her freindes. 

 Edinbvrgh, printed be Robert Charteris, 1603. 



The M. M. is Mistress Melvil, and in all subsequent 

 editions she is designated as Elizabeth Melvil, Lady 

 Culros yonger ; while another variety in her de- 

 scription is furnished by Alex. Hume, who dedicates 

 his Hymnes or Sacred Songs (Edin, 1599) to Eliz. 

 Mal-vill, Ladie Cumrie, whom he identifies with 

 our subject by extolling both her poetry and her 

 piety. Mr. John Livingston, who has left a MS. 

 account of Eminent Proffessors in Scotland, also 

 notices Lady Culros as famous for her Dream 

 anent her spiritual condition, which she put in 

 verse, and was by others published. Mr. Laing, 

 who furnishes these particulars, reconciles the 

 above descrepancies in her nomenclature by in- 

 forming us that our authoress was Elizabeth, 

 daughter of Sir Jas. Melvill of Halhill, the his- 

 torian ; and that by her marriage with John Col- 

 vill, eldest son of Alexander, Commendator of 

 Culros (who during his father's life had the de- 

 signation of Colvill of Wester- Cumrie), she re- 

 ceived the honorary title, first, of Lady Cumrie, 

 and subsequently of Lady Culros. 



So far, 1 think, we may be satisfied, then, that 

 the existing Dreame is the work of the Lady Cul- 

 ros of the seventeenth century; and, judging 

 from the number of impressions it underwent, and 

 its consequent great popularity, as one of the 

 books of the people *, it almost amounts to cer- 

 tainty that it is identical with the wild wail which 

 lingered so long in the ears of Lawrence Temple, 

 i. e. the poet Armstrong, and the religious rhap- 

 sody of Pinkerton, Campbell, and Leyden. But 

 here we come to the real point of Lady L.'s 

 Query, — the singular reference to a like Dreme 

 by a Dreamer of the same name, in a poem pub- 

 lished more than a century before the time of our 

 Lady Culros ! 



I have not elsewhere met with the quotation 

 Lady Lytton has furnished from recollection in 

 support of the existence of the ivilde shriekinge 

 dreme of the olden time, nor do I find that any of 

 our poetical antiquaries allude to it when speak- 

 ing of that extant : considering the evident fami- 

 liarity of the editor of the reprint of 1826 with 

 the old Scottish metrical romances, — that of Sir 

 Gawayne in particular, which he has also edited, 

 — it does seem impossible to believe but that some 

 mistake is made in the quotation, or error in the 

 ascription of it to a ballad printed in Richard IIL's 



* The Dreame has its scoffers too : Sam. Colvill, in his 

 Whig's Supplication written about 1680, and the reputed 

 son of Lady Culros, has the following rough allusion to 

 the work, and its detractors : — 



" Which sundry drunken Asses flout, 

 Not seeing the Jewel within the clout ! " 



time. Curious enough Campbell, in his History 

 of Poetry in Scotland, when commenting upon 

 Pinkerton's jumping to the conclusion that the soi- 

 disant Lawrence Temple referred to Mrs. Colvill's 

 Dreame, asks, may it not be possible that Arm- 

 strong alluded, not to this silly rhapsody, but to 

 some other piece of poetry of which he had but 

 a faint remembrance ? With all due respect for 

 this northern Warton, the doubt started by him 

 must remain but a very faint probability until the 

 correctness of Lady L.'s memory is vouched for 

 by the exact passage, and proof that it is to be 

 found in a production of the press of the antiquity 

 indicated. 



Having said thus much of the Dreame, it may 

 not be out of place to add a word or two by way 

 of description, particularly as neither original nor 

 reprint are likely to fall into the hands of any but 

 the curious in old books. Pinkerton, in his Tra- 

 gic Ballads (London, 1781), strips the Dreame of 

 its horrors when he says, in reply to Temple, 

 " this composition is neither lost, nor is it too ter- 

 rible for the ear. On the contrary a child might 

 hear it repeated in a winter's night without the 

 smallest emotion." Viewing our amiable enthu- 

 siast as the Dreamer, we are struck at the outset 

 by the Bunyan-like key in which she opens her 

 wail : — 



" Vpon ane day as I did monme full soir 

 With sindrie things quhairwith my saull was greifit, 

 My greif increasit, and grew moir, and moir, 

 My comfort fled, and could not be releifit ; 

 With heavines my heart was sae mischeifit, 

 I loathit my lyfe, I xiould not eit nor drink ; 

 I micht not speik, nor luick to nane that leifit, 

 Bot musit alone, and divers things did think. 



" The wretchid warld did sa molest my mynde, 

 I thocht vpon this fals, and iron age ; 

 And how our harts were sa to vyce inclynde, 

 That sathan seimit maist feirfullie to rage ; 

 Nathing on earth my sorrow could asswage ! 

 I felt my sin most strangelie to incres ; 

 I grevit my spreit, that wont to be my pledge. 

 My saull was drownit into maist deip distress." 



In this style, brooding over her sins and the 

 wretchedness of the world, and longing to be at 

 rest, in cadences which also remind us of that con- 

 temporary plaint, the New Jerusalem Hymn, she 

 proceeds until wearied with the improvisings of a 

 deeply religious spirit she falls asleep, and in her 

 Dreame is visited by an angel, who interrogates 

 her as to the cause of her misery, and finding her 

 bent upon closing her pilgrimage, and attaining 

 at once to heaven, notwithstanding the perils of 

 the way, says : — 



" Thou answeirs weill, I am content said hee, 



To be thy guyde, bot see thou grip me fast." 

 Then follows the Dreamer's narration of her 

 spiritual flight : — 



" Up I rais and maid na mair delaj', 

 My febill arme about his arme I cast ; 

 He went befoir and still did guyde the waj', 

 1 Thocht I was walk, my spiiet did follow fast, 



